Final round of written comments by governments on draft 2013 Wetlands Supplement starts

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is pleased to announce that the final round of written comments by governments on the final draft of the 2013 Supplement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Wetlands (Wetlands Supplement) has started, and will end on 8 September 2013. This is the third stage of IPCC mandated reviews before formal adoption and acceptance of the Wetlands Supplement at the 37th Session of the IPCC to be held in Batumi, Georgia, from 14 to 18 October 2013.

Review is a vital part of producing methodology reports such as this one. Draft reports are subjected to a multi-stage review beginning with the review of a first order draft by scientific experts, followed by the review of a second order draft by governments and experts and a final round of government comments before adoption and acceptance at a Session of the Panel.

Two previous drafts of the Wetlands Supplement were subject to review by experts (Expert Review) from 16 April 2012 to 11 June 2012 and by governments and experts (Government and Expert Review) from 11 February 2013 to 7 April 2013 (for Chapter 2, from 18 February 2013 to 14 April 2013). The draft was revised by the authors after both of these reviews in response to comments received, and this process has produced the final draft of the Wetlands Supplement. The first review of the Overview Chapter took place at the time of the Government and Expert Review.

Climate policy and global climate negotiations rely on a robust scientific foundation to produce sound results. The IPCC provides policymakers with regular assessments of climate science and its potential impacts, as well as assessments of the possibilities for mitigating climate change. The estimation of emissions and removals of greenhouse gases (GHG) is one important basis for climate mitigation and the IPCC provides de facto international standards for such estimation, through highly technical work, while offering flexibility to take different national circumstances and capacities into account.

In 2010, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) invited the IPCC to undertake further methodological work on wetlands, focusing on the rewetting and restoration of peatland, with a view to filling in the gaps in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (2006 IPCC Guidelines). In May the following year, during its 33rd Session of the IPCC in Abu Dhabi, the IPCC asked its Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories (TFI) to undertake the work to develop additional national-level inventory methodological guidance on wetlands to address the gaps identified in the 2006 IPCC Guidelines.

Also at the request of the UNFCCC, the TFI is working on the 2013 Revised Supplementary Methods and Good Practice Guidance Arising from the Kyoto Protocol, whose final draft will be circulated for government comments on 2 September 2013. It will also be considered for formal adoption and acceptance at the 37th Session of the IPCC in October.

For more information contact:

IPCC Press Office, Email: ipcc-media@wmo.int

Jonathan Lynn, + 41 22 730 8066 or Werani Zabula, + 41 22 730 8120